How many of us yawned during most history lessons? Almost everyone! But what if your study table itself became a setting for the World War and you could see the war fronts emerge on it with artillery, tanks, and explosions accompanying with full graphics and sound effects – in the real time-space of your own environment? You could pause to have a closer look at a particular instance. You could click on the armoury to know specifics. Essentially, you could go back in time to see history, live! Augmented Reality (AR) serves this ability to overlay simulations onto your screen while looking through the camera of a viewing device. The experience only needs a flat surface to dock onto.
The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and IMG have produced a show, currently presented in London by Viking Cruises Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh. This unveils more than 150 original objects from the tomb with 60 pieces travelling out of Egypt for the first and final time. To supplement this unique once in a lifetime experience, Enter the Tomb: Virtual Reality Experience produced by Chadwick Turner and Ian Donahue of Simulated Ventures literally takes audiences through a virtual journey into the tomb and up close with artefacts and findings – a mean task in the common parlance of the word ‘reality’ if one needed to travel to Egypt and visit the tombs alongside crowds.
While mobile phones and tablets become great platforms for AR used in consumer, retail experiences and off-site technical troubleshooting, etc, highly specialised uses of technical training and infrastructure surveillance can be effected through AR glasses. Majority of the student population comprises visual learners. Others learn by doing. It seems obvious that we can integrate the visual and exploratory journey of learning through AR-enabled content.
A great example of learning science through AR-enabled textbooks can be seen at the ongoing exhibition by Vitek Skop’s Vivid Books at Bangalore International Centre organised by Bengaluru By Design.
So, how far are we from bringing AR into our classrooms and formal education? How can we aid learning through immersive visual perception? We all agree that learning is way more effective with visual cues and imagery. Use of bar and pie charts, infographics, pictographs, etc are proof of this fact. Are we willing and ready to invest into 3D content for the learning of our young ones so that future generations are well informed and take a keener interest in lessons from the past in order to build a better world?
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